January 27, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



37 



so that a little sun-heat may be bottled up on cold afternoons. 

 When it is needed a crack of air can be given before nightfall. 



Unless a special house is at command, with a strong supply 

 of bottom-heat, Cucumbers will germinate but slowly, yet a 

 good hot-bed starts them quicker than anything else, but 

 sudden falls in temperature are to be expected for some weeks 

 yet, and it is safer to trust to heated glass houses, at least in 

 this section, until toward the end of February. Tomatoes 

 which we commenced to pick fruit from in October are now 

 getting partially spent, and will be shortly thrown out to make 

 room for another crop. We get the best tomatoes in winter 

 by growing them in pots. By confining the roots we secure 

 warmer soil, and we can feed liberally and surely by top- 

 dressings and liquid stimulants. A sowing made in October 

 now has fruit of good size, some of which will be ripe in three 

 weeks' time. Our best indoor variety last season was Eclipse, 

 a Scotch-raised sort, which gave us remarkably fine bunches, 

 some containing twelve to fourteen fruits each. May's Favorite 

 is also a capital variety. We are trying Comet for the first 

 time, which we saw extensively grown last summer in England 

 and Scotland for market. A pinch of seed sown now will give 

 ripe fruit by June, some weeks before any can be gathered 

 outdoors. Aristocrat is likely to be largely grown outdoors the 

 coming season ; it proved remarkably prolific last year ; the 

 fruits were smooth and even, and did not crack as most out- 

 door sorts do. 



The present is a suitable time to sow a few small pots of 

 Parsley to come in after the present supply in boxes or cold 

 frames has run to seed. Chappell's Matchless and Champion 

 Mess, curled, are capital sorts. Mushrooms are being more 

 generally grown every year, and few places where there are 

 greenhouses or moderately warm cellars need be without 

 them. Our first bed has now been in bearing for two months 

 and shows signs of exhaustion. A dressing of new loam 

 and a watering of warm water will be given in a few days' 

 time and the bed covered with hay, to induce the starting of a 

 second crop. Usually we have turned over our manure very 

 carefully for some time before spawning, to allow the rank 

 heat to escape, but this winter we decided to try a bed made 

 up with hot manure, mixed with an equal quantity of loam, 

 without turning it over at all. The bed heated very quickly, 

 and was spawned at a temperature of one hundred degrees; 

 mushrooms appeared in just one month from the day of spawn- 

 ing, and they are of very splendid quality, just three weeks 

 ahead of the bed prepared in the regulation manner. The 

 question arises, whether it is necessary to go to all the trouble 

 of shaking up and turning over the manure as we have done 

 in the past, when the less troublesome method gives quicker 

 and better returns. We are trying another bed treated in this 

 way, and have recommended one or two friends to do like- 

 wise, and if these turn out successfully I shall abandon the old 

 way altogether. A great many Mushroom failures arise from 

 the manure being either too wet or too cold before the spawn 

 is placed in the beds ; we have in the past thought it unsafe to 

 spawn until the heat subsided to eighty-five degrees, or there- 

 about. This season's experience teaches that it is better to do 

 it while the manure is fifteen degrees warmer. . 



Taunton, Mass. W. N. Craig. 



Correspondence. 

 Trees in Public Parks. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — It is with sorrow that I am obliged to confess that I 

 never read your editorial of December 23d, 1896, until January 

 2d, 1897, but, perhaps, it is even now not too late to express 

 appreciation of your vigorous words respecting the all too 

 prevalent feeling that nothing can justify the felling of a tree. 

 Unless this superstition can be put to rout, we may as well at- 

 tempt no parks or reservations, for if the axe cannot be kept 

 going, Nature will soon reduce the scenery of such domains 

 to a monotony of closely crowded, spindling tree trunks. 

 Among men versed in such matters there is no question about 

 this. Mr. Olmsted and Mr. J. B. Harrison once compiled a 

 pamphlet entitled Observations on the Treatment of Public Plan- 

 tations, in which they printed about forty quotations from the 

 writings of all the highest authorities, from Loudon to Douglas, 

 and all substantially agree with you in saying that in such 

 places " the axe should never be allowed to rest." 



But how shall the use of the axe be guided ? This is the 

 practical question for park commissioners, and it seems to 

 me that your editorial gives only half an answer. You recom- 

 mend the employment of " experts in the care of ornamental 

 trees, "and experts must, indeed, be engaged at least as teachers 



of technical methods. But how shall the experts themselves 

 be guided ? Shall they be permitted to reduce the groves and 

 woods of our public domains to collections of specimen trees, 

 or to the monotony of the typical German forests, as, by the way, 

 they surely will do if they are not controlled ? In the landscape 

 of a park your arboriculturist, with his zeal for "good" or 

 " ornamental " trees, is almost as dangerous a person as your 

 horticulturist, with his passion for curious, decorative or novel 

 plants. A good park plan is fundamentally a scheme for the 

 creation of more and more pleasing scenery through modifi- 

 cations to be made in the pretixistent vegetation, by clearings, 

 thinnings, plantingsandthe like ; and only secondarily a scheme 

 for making the resulting scenery agreeably accessible by roads 

 and walks. Engineers who direct the building of park roads 

 are expected to conform their work to the requirements of the 

 adopted general plan. Woodmen, foresters and planters 

 should be similarly controlled by the requirements of the 

 same plan — 'but you do not say so. 



Permit me to add that your incidental remarks about the Bos- 

 ton parks (with which I am familiar) strike me as exaggerated. 

 It is true, indeed, that road construction has proceeded more 

 rapidly than planting and woodmen's work, and that some of 

 the older plantations are suffering for lack of thinning. On the 

 other hand, none of the wooded or planted areas of the Boston 

 parks are yet in the deplorable condition of the border planta- 

 tions of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, which you mention, nor 

 are they likely to reach that condition yet awhile. The Boston 

 Park Commission, influenced largely by a recent mayor, has 

 simply chosen to spend its money in building roads rather 

 than in tree-cutting, pruning and planting ; but it has not been 

 forgotten that woodmen's and planters' work is at least as es- 

 sential to the realization of the general plans as the work of 

 the engineer, and there is good reason to suppose that this 

 work, the postponement of which has as yet done compara- 

 tively little harm, will soon be entered on with vigor. 



Brookline, Mass. Charles Eliot. 



[The wise thinning of trees in public parks and other 

 pleasure-grounds demands good judgment, which can come 

 only from knowledge and experience ; and in the case of 

 public parks it is a particularly delicate operation because, 

 as our correspondent points out, the requirements of the 

 original scheme of the park must, as far as possible, be 

 preserved. No man should be entrusted with the care of 

 ornamental plantations whose idea of a park wood is a col- 

 lection of specimen trees, or whose understanding of an 

 ornamental forest does not rise above the utilitarian idea of 

 the greatest product from the smallest area. The man who 

 knows park plantations and their requirements will realize 

 that a park wood is beautiful and long-lived in proportion 

 as its trees are healthy, and that different trees require dif- 

 ferent amounts of light in order to produce the best sylvan 

 results ; and the man who knows his business will produce 

 specimen trees where the plan of the park demands them, 

 and from time to time will thin the trees in woods and 

 groves in such a manner and to such an extent that their 

 sylvan character will be maintained. Men capable of 

 directing such work as this can be trained if there is a 

 demand for their services, and if park commissioners are 

 willing to pay them properly for their technical knowledge ; 

 but as long as city officers believe that any man who is 

 strong enough to handle an axe or a saw is sufficiently 

 equipped to plant, prune and cut out park and street trees, 

 there is little inducement for intelligent men to fit them- 

 selves to manage municipal plantations. 



Our remarks on the condition of the trees in the Boston 

 public parks are certainly not exaggerated, as any one 

 can see for himself who will examine the plantations 

 in Leverett Park, Jamaica Park or Franklin Park, in each of 

 which natural woods or old plantations stood when the 

 land for these parks was taken by the city. These groves 

 and woods had long been neglected and nothing has been 

 done by the city to improve them during the ten or fifteen 

 years of its ownership, and, as we have already said, they 

 are now in bad condition and need immediate and intelli- 

 gent care. Many old trees which might have been saved 

 ten years ago are now dead or hopelessly ruined, and 

 neglect and deterioration can be seen everywhere. Our 

 correspondent implies that the money available for 

 park construction in Boston has all been spent in road- 



